


Shattered

by chicafrom3



Category: Andromeda
Genre: AU, Angst, Character Study, Depression, Gen, Grief, Identity, Introspection, Isolation, Mental Disorder, Stream of Consciousness, season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-17
Updated: 2006-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-18 03:53:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/184682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chicafrom3/pseuds/chicafrom3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three freakin' years spent on Seefra with the technophobes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shattered

Broken.

I overheard Beka and Rhade talking about me.

Rhade asked Beka if she thought…

If she thought Rommie’s destruction…

If she thought Rommie’s destruction had broken me.

Broken.

I wanted to break in on their conversation.

Tell them _I’m not broken_.

But I didn’t.

Walked on.

Broken, you see.

Broken doesn’t begin to describe me.

Six letters.

Six little letters.

Any word to describe me should have dozens of letters.

Maybe every letter in every alphabet ever invented.

I can think of a couple Vedran words that come close.

Lots of _X_ s and _Z_ s.

Broken isn’t long enough or strong enough or final enough.

But I’ve been sitting here.

Rummaging through my vocabulary.

Trying to find a word in Common that comes closer than _broken_.

Crushed, maybe.

Destroyed.

Utterly annihilated.

Ruined.

Splintered.

Smashed into tiny, almost invisible shards.

But not _broken_ , no, not _broken_.

They can’t understand.

They won’t understand.

See, I was standing there.

Talking to her.

She had just killed the Magog.

I thought she was fine.

I was sure she was fine.

 _We_ were fine.

We were gonna go out there and kill the Magog and win.

Because the good guys always win, right?

But life ain’t a sappy holo-vid like Beka used to pretend she didn’t watch.

I saw the look on her face.

I knew she wasn’t fine.

“ _No_ ,” I said. Like I could stop it from happening by wanting it not to happen.

Life has never worked that way for me.

“ _Stay safe, Harper_ ,” she whispered.

And she was gone.

Just like that.

In a heartbeat.

In _my_ heartbeat.

That was three years ago.

Three years.

One month.

Two weeks.

And four days.

And I.

Remember.

 _Everything_.

Every detail of her face.

Every detail of that _stupid_ room.

The smell of machinery, and Magog fur, and burnt flesh, and melting plastic and metal, and the Commonwealth soaps she used.

The sound of whirring machines and ventilations units and the Magog attacks going on and Rommie’s own malfunctioning mechanisms.

The bitter, acrylic taste to the air.

Or maybe that was my own pain.

Whichever.

Point is, my memory hasn’t glossed over a single detail.

I remember it all.

Everything went to hell after Rommie died.

I tried to keep it all together.

I really did.

I had work to do.

Get Arkology to slipstream.

Besides, Trance’s gloom-and-doom prediction had me convinced that I would die on Arkology.

I could handle that.

That would make sense.

Saying goodbye to Beka—

That alone nearly killed me.

“ _You said it would be fun. Well, Seamus? It was._ ”

And then I was alone.

And then the Magog came.

And I thought I would die there.

And you know what?

I was okay with that.

But instead I ended up here.

On Seefra.

For three. _Freakin’_. Years.

In hell.

But, see, I grew up in hell.

A different hell, yes.

But only different in details.

The landscape’s the same.

It’s still hell.

And I know how to survive in hell.

Only I couldn’t do it alone.

More accurately, I didn’t want to.

I was trapped in hell.

With no foreseeable way out.

With no work, nothing to do to keep my mind off my pain.

Alone.

So I built Doyle.

I was careful.

Made sure no one could tell she was an android.

The locals don’t like technology, you see.

And I made sure that, aside from being female and humanoid, she was nothing like Rommie.

Because nobody could _ever_ replace her.

Doyle wasn’t Rommie.

But she was Doyle.

That was good enough.

She was kind to me.

She helped me as I came up with things to do to keep busy.

She talked to me and kept me sane. Ish.

She was my friend.

I needed that.

Doyle isn’t like Rommie.

Except she’s beautiful.

Except she kicks ass.

Except she’s _so_ smart.

Except she loves me—not romantic love, God forbid, but love nonetheless.

Other than that, they’re nothing alike.

I should probably go check in with her.

Go talk to her.

I wonder how she’s doing with everybody?

I wonder how I’m doing with everybody?

Everything’s changed.

Everybody’s changed.

 _I’ve_ changed.

I’m not the same Seamus Harper they knew.

Three.

Years.

And I have to deal with my dead friends, my late loved ones, risen from the grave again.

Beka, who’s spent barely seven months since the Arkology incident.

I hate temporal mechanics, by the way. I get trapped in Dante’s Inferno for _three years_ , and she gets seven months?!

Anyway. Tangent.

Beka seems to have lost all loyalties in seven months.

All faith.

Not that I blame her for that.

But she doesn’t trust anyone anymore, me included, and she’s always trusted me.

Well, not _always_ , but for a very long time.

I still love her dearly, I always will, but she’s not really my Beka anymore, and I have to be wary of her now, and that hurts.

Then there’s Rhade.

Nine months.

Man, those nine months turned him bitter.

Cynical.

And alcoholic, which makes me laugh a little.

Nietzscheans aren’t supposed to become alcoholic.

They’re supposed to be _above_ addictions.

Supposed to be _superior_.

But then, Rhade’s an _enlightened_ Nietzschean.

Ha.

Ha.

Wanna know a secret?

I find it a little easier to tolerate him now that his shiny wide-eyed newness has worn off.

I understand him a little better.

He amuses me, kinda.

And he doesn’t piss me off quite as often.

I don’t trust him any farther than I can throw him.

But I tolerate him.

Trance.

Trance I don’t know what to make of.

Not that that’s a new development.

Trance I think doesn’t know what to make of me and Doyle.

She’s confused and I think a little scared.

Splotchy memory or something.

And me and Doyle are the newest additions so she’s confused and scared by us most of all.

Right now, Trance ranks _threat_ on my alarm systems, because confused and scared beings with awesome powers are dangerous.

Dylan…

One.

Week.

I get three years and he gets _one week_?

Yeah, well, the universe isn’t fair, Seamus, hasn’t your life taught you that?

But he hasn’t changed _at all_.

And I want to hurt him for it.

He’s still the same smug, self-righteous, hypocritical jerk who doesn’t see that the universe doesn’t exist solely for his benefit or for his manipulation.

And I can’t stand it.

Somehow in three years, without changing at all, he’s gone from being one of My Own, one of my family, one of the people I’d kill to protect, to being this creep I can’t stand to be around, who I’d be fine with watching die.

Maybe that’s my fault.

Maybe that’s because I’ve changed.

But it’s still there.

And then.

And then there’s Andromeda.

Who I’ve been avoiding.

In her different incarnations.

The others don’t understand.

Except Doyle.

I know Doyle understands why I’m avoiding Andromeda.

But then, I told Doyle a lot about Andromeda.

I love Andromeda deeply, I do.

But it hurts.

Because she looks so much like Rommie, sounds so much like Rommie.

But she’s _not Rommie_.

That’s what they don’t get.

See, Andromeda and Holo-Andromeda, and Rommie, they’re all different people.

Similar, but not the same.

Sisters, maybe.

Three sides to the same coin, which doesn’t work unless we’re using Than currency.

The others don’t get that they aren’t the same person.

That it hurts to see Andromeda and remember Rommie dying before my eyes.

“ _Stay safe, Harper_.”

It hurts, remembering Rommie’s death, because it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Everybody I’ve lost over my whole life.

And then Rommie, who I thought I’d never lose because androids live for thousands of years.

I couldn’t take it anymore.

Rommie went with me to Earth, you know?

And I told Brendan about her. Told him how we were saving the universe, me and her. He smiled a little sadly.

 _“Yeah, well, just remember what you’re saving it for. Her. Her and all that’s good in the world.”_

Rommie _was_ all that’s good in the world.

The problem isn’t that I _loved_ her.

The problem is that I _love_ her, present tense.

She described to me once a problem she had, that no organic language had the words to describe the relationship between a ship and her engineer. I know what she meant.

Rommie was my life, my daughter, my lover, my mother, my ship—it’s impossible to explain.

I love her, and I can’t stand that I lost her.

That’s what I did what I did, you see.

Not that they understand. They think I did it because I went crazy.

But you know, I could’ve handled her death, maybe, if I’d had Beka to fall back on.

But I didn’t.

And everything went to hell.

Three. Years.

I’m not the same person, I don’t trust my friends, I can’t face someone I love and adore, and I think I’ve gone a little bit crazy in three years, just a little.

Does that mean I’m broken?

No. Not broken.

Devastated.

Demolished.

Fragmented.

Shattered.

Yeah. That works. That comes pretty close. It’s not long enough, but…

That’s me.

Shattered.


End file.
